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People often come into counselling or psychotherapy because they have lost control of their lives. They may be experiencing symptoms such as anxiety or depression, maybe they’re having difficulty in their relationships or their lives are turning out to be unsatisfactory in some way. 

It is my view that these symptoms can nearly always be traced back to a lack of self-love.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross, author of On Death and Dying said the most common thing she heard from people at the end of their lives was “I made a living but I never really lived”.

To truly love ourselves we have to face all the times where we felt unlovable either because we were abused or because we misinterpreted events based on limited understanding. 

In his new book, the Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté talks about being given away to a stranger by his mother at the age of 14 months. 

Whilst this was in fact an enormous act of love to protect him from great danger, his interpretation was that he was unwanted and unlovable. If parents are stressed, short tempered or absent, children can interpret this to mean that they are not loveable.

Loving ourselves is not an event, it’s a process. It involves a decision to be compassionate, loving and understanding towards our vulnerable selves. 

This is not always an easy process because it means having to face the grief of having lived under the impression that we were “only loveable if………(Fill in the blank)”, or that we were in some way unlovable because of a fundamental flaw.

The decision to love ourselves however, is an exciting and wonderful adventure and when we can identify the blocks to loving ourselves we can then start to rectify our false beliefs and come home to ourselves.

A short exercise to help boost your sense of self-love

Words: Geoff Hopping 

Are you interested in training as a counsellor or psychotherapist?

At The Link Centre we offer counselling and psychotherapy courses both online and at our centre in Plumpton.

Whether you’re just starting out or already on your way to becoming a qualified counsellor or psychotherapist, we have courses for all levels.

Want to find out more about the courses we offer? Come to our Online Open Evening on 30th March 2023 (6.30pm-8.00pm) or join our free How to Become a Counsellor Workshop on 27th April 2023 (6.30pm-7.30pm).

If you’re new to Transactional Analysis we recommend starting with the TA101 – next one is 25th & 26th March (online). We also offer a 15-hour online Counselling Skills MOT workshop starting 5th April.  

If you’re interested in training with us go to www.thelinkcentre.co.uk or email info[@]thelinkcentre.co.uk

Laura Mitchell

The post The Importance of Self-Love appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

We have come to believe that modern technology has been a boon to mankind and has made life better, simpler, happier, and easier. In many ways this is true.

Heavy physical labour in factory conditions has often been replaced with a robot, collecting water from a distant river has been replaced with piped fresh clean water, collecting firewood for warming ourselves has been replaced with piped gas or electricity, getting an urgent message to someone many miles away used to involve mail coaches travelling for days, whereas today we can send the message in seconds on our smartphones. Ploughing the fields, planting and harvesting used to need vast horse and man power, today much of this work can be done by SATNAV controlled machines, and so on. Who could possibly suggest all these and many more advances in technology have not made our lives better? 

In medicine we now have remarkable diagnostic machines and sophisticated testing equipment, giving physicians clear understanding of the patient’s illness, that would not have been dreamt about a hundred years ago. How could this not be seen as only a benefit to mankind?

At a more mundane level, we can now do all our shopping sitting at home with our computers or smartphone whereas in the past, even I remember as young child, we would have had to walk some distance to the markets and shops and carry it all back in two heavy shopping bags. Travelling any long distances would have meant days on the roads, on foot or on horseback, or for the few better off in a horse drawn carriage. Today we can hop into our cars or board a plane to almost anywhere in the world. Once again surely no one could suggest this has not made us better off?

What is the reality of all these wondrous advances in technology?

We have, in the west in particular, a breakdown of society and community, a rising neurosis, people chronically stressed and mentally ill. The very fabric of a happy and contented society and community has been seriously damaged. 

It was Rudolph Steiner, over a century ago who warned of the rise of technology and the damage this would do to humanity. Less than a century ago Lord Horder, an outstanding physician, predicted the rise of technology in medicine would possibly lead to the loss of the human touch, that medicine would be reduced to a cold, uncaring, insensitive mechanical process, and the rise of technology would lead to the demise of the caring physician. Even the great Leonardo da Vinci, over five hundred years ago, foresaw the impact of the growth of knowledge outstripping our ability to use it for more wisdom.

Fast forward to today’s reality

Today it’s common to see a group of friends gathered together for a meal, particularly young people, not talking much to each other, not even looking at each other, rather each busy concentrating on their smartphones. More youngsters at home, rather than visiting friends nearby to chat and enjoy each others company, may be seen on their computers or smartphones playing video games, visiting social media sites and checking how many “likes” they have got that day. 

Back home if there is a breakdown of the cooker it will probably require many phone calls, long periods of waiting for someone to be available and little human contact at all. The frustration of automated helplines can be overwhelming! In the past it would have been normal to have a person answer and provide the help needed within minutes. The older generation appear to be more and more isolated by modern technology, however the younger generation are suffering the de-humanising effects of it even more so. 

How can we bring some sanity back to humanity?

How can society recover some sanity and learn how to benefit from technology without the adverse health effects? 

I don’t have a quick fix solution to this existentialist problem but I do believe we all need to recognise and begin to address it if we are to have a better world tomorrow. When a problem is so invasive and widespread throughout our lives, it has to be addressed in an equally complex and broad range of actions by us all. 

In my earlier career as a Management Consultant I was involved with a new management tool called “Operational Research” that was established during the second world war to solve highly complex military problems such as how to destroy well-fortified dams that provided power to the enemy. Many of us have seen the epic solution as shown in the film “The Dam Busters”. Briefly, only when a large team of people drawn from many different disciplines combined their specialist knowledge and experience was a solution found. 

A generation later this same approach began to be applied in industry as Operational Research to solve complex problems in a multi-disciplinary way. So today we urgently need this same approach to the Big Problem – how can mankind live happily and sustainably on our one and only planet Earth? 

There are the specialists and experts in many fields already, in conservation, in psychology, in economics, in medicine, in agriculture, in community work, in environmental research, in communications, in politics and in hundreds of other disciplines. Right now, most are working in isolation from each other and experiencing frustration that their own perspective on current problems is not being recognised as significant. 

Integrated solutions

Only when all these varied disciplines are integrated will significant progress be made. This is not an amazing new concept, just a simple statement of the obvious that we have all known intuitively for centuries but have never made the effort to make it happen. This effort is required of each and every one of us on the planet! It begins at a very local individual level by each of us becoming more aware of how we could help each other whether in a family, community, business or society. 

We all, like every living creature from bacteria to mammal, have an ability to respond well to any event or stimulus we meet; that’s how we have survived so far! 

Responsibility shared

What is now the challenge for humanity, is to become individually and together more responsible for our lives and our actions. Man has for too long behaved irresponsibly, as individuals and as societies or nations. The common driving forces have usually been profit in industry, power in politics, greed in individuals and a lack of care for our fellow citizen, creature or habitat, close by or across the world. 

Only in early “primitive societies” do we see healthy responsibility as the norm. Such societies have managed to survive thousands of years without destroying their habitat, until “modern societies” changed that for them. 

A good read on this topic is “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight” by Thom Hartmann. Written thirty years ago, it foresaw the current fossil fuel crisis and suggests we should look to the last few ancient indigenous people to learn from them how we can begin to live in harmony with nature, and sustainably before it’s too late. 

This is only a small contribution by just one person to an holistic approach that is urgently needed, but if added to by millions more making their individual contributions there is hope for our planet and all that live on it including mankind! 

Michael Lingard BSc. DO.

The post Is Modern Technology Damaging Our Health?  appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Part of me is desperate to have freedom and choice, to be able to see the people I love and to hug them again. More surprisingly perhaps, part of me doesn’t want to return to “normal” life.

I am really shocked by this second response and I am aware that it is what we call “Impasse” in Transactional Analysis.

What is an impasse?

An impasse is a stuck place – a place where we have two competing thoughts, needs, wants.

An example is  “I want to be close to people” and “I don’t want to be close to people” or “I want to develop myself” and “I want to stay as I am”.

We all experience impasses in our lives. They can be confusing and challenging and we often shut them away and get on with whatever we feel needs to be done or is expected of us.

My current impasse is “I want to get back to normal life” and “I want things to stay as they are now”.

I think part of my impasse is due to the fact I feel slightly institutionalised in my own home.

Although there have been times when I have felt frustrated, confined and bored, there is also comfort in familiarity and not having to face the big wide world.

May of us will have resorted back to our inner child and regressed to earlier stages of our lives, after being told what we can and can’t do for nearly a year.

As a result, we may be experiencing thoughts and feelings from our childhood. In TA we call this our Child Ego State and all humans regress back to this state at some point.

When we are at an impasse it’s important for us to acknowledge both parts of ourselves and our desires. We should sit with the impasse while we decide from our Adult Ego state what we want and want makes sense.

It’s important for us to listen to our inner child and to offer comfort to that part of us (as we would do if there was an actual child in distress).

Change is not always easy for human beings, but we will all come through this challenging time, and one day it will just be a memory.

Going into lockdown was mentally challenging for many of us and coming out of it will be no different.

Take care, look after yourselves and know that whatever you feel is okay.

Leilani Mitchell – The Link Centre

Interested in learning more about Impasse, Ego States and other TA Theory?

The Link Centre offers everything from a two-day Introduction to Transactional Analysis (TA101) to an accredited Diploma in Counselling.

We are also running a series of by-donation online workshops on different topics bi-weekly (Mondays 10am-12pm and Tuesdays 6pm-8pm).

Our workshops are now being translated LIVE into Russian, Hindi, Romanian, Italian, Croatian, Bengali, German & Dutch. We are striving to make TA (and some other topics) accessible to all.

If you’re interested to learn more about this particular topic, Mark Head will be running a workshop on Impasse on 8th of March.

For more information please visit thelinkcentre.co.uk or email enquiries@thelinkcentre.co.uk.

The post Why do I have mixed feelings about coming out of lockdown? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

This was the spark that drove me to begin writing. I had always been told that I had a way of making complicated things sound easy. I knew that I wanted to write a book which brought together traditional psychology and modern awakening spirituality.

Having been a transpersonal therapist for more than twenty years, I have personally witnessed many people’s journeys of challenge, growth and self realisation. Working in a transpersonal way meant that I understood my client’s struggles, both from an academic psychological perspective and from a higher spiritual one. This helped me to realise that when we view life solely through the lens of our everyday ego – our unexamined, limiting mind – we suffer. But if we take a moment to step back, and view that same life from our higher self, we see that experience doesn’t happen to us, it happens for us.

Everything, I have come to understand, is intelligently designed to bring us back to our spiritual selves. To our creative essence. Yet we have to face challenges and struggles to transmute our pain, and bring light to the depths of our shadows, before we can discover and share our unique gifts with the world. It is this journey, which we all have to undertake, that often seems so daunting, confusing and overwhelming.

I wanted to write a book that would act as a companion guide on this journey. To write a book which reframed our difficult emotions, offered alternatives to our unhelpful coping mechanisms and shared insight into understanding why we need to face our pain in order to realise our highest potential.

I divided the book into two parts, with part one acting as my spiritually inspired philosophy, part two is a ‘quick reference’ section which dedicates a chapter to each common emotional state: from anger to anxiety and from vulnerability to guilt. In order to bring the material to life, I include case studies of clients who have passed through my doors over the years, quotes from inspiring thinkers and soul searching questioning, designed to engage the reader to pause and reflect as they navigate their self awareness pathway.

My aim was always to make the information accessible, relatable and easy to absorb. I was fortunate to get an inspiring endorsement from the author of the most widely used counselling model in the world, Professor Gerard Egan, who wrote the internationally acclaimed book ‘The Skilled Helper.’ His words are included in the foreword of the book. I’ll close with an excerpt from the back cover:

“In an age of increasing uncertainty and fear, we struggle to find a solid foundation for our lives. The author poses questions that many of us are scared to ask, guiding the reader to fresh learning and personal growth. His style is accessible; the ideas both profound and yet easily absorbed. Words of wisdom from an experienced professional - but more importantly from a fellow human being. This book will make you think. And feel. And change.” Jonathan Izard. Journalist, author and psychotherapist. 

If you would like to learn more please visit my website: www.chrisjpartridge.com or follow this link to find ‘Wake Up – What Are Your Emotions Really Telling You?’

words: Chris Partridge

The post Wake up! What are your emotions really telling you? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking it makes it so’. Shakespeare

‘Anger is the energy mother earth gave us as little kids to stand forward on our own behalf and say I matter’. Joann Peterson

‘State and story work together in a persistent and, if not interrupted, enduring loop’. Deb Dana

livewellandprosper.uk  – 07545 227272 

The post Embracing and understanding our emotions appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

According to Human Givens theory we have nine emotional needs: 

1. Security
2. Attention (given and received)
3. A sense of control
4. Emotional intimacy
5. Feeling part of a wider community
6. Privacy
7. A sense of status within social groupings
8. A sense of competence and achievement
9. A sense of meaning and purpose

Right now, probably the most challenged emotional need is likely to be a sense of control.

So how can you gain a sense of control?

The first thing you can do to feel a sense of control is to take maximum control over protecting yourself from catching and spreading the virus. So rather than thinking you have been ‘told’ to wash your hands and that you ‘have to’ keep a social distance etc., you could instead tell yourself that you choose to do these things because you choose to protect yourself and those you love. 

In fact, even if you aren’t a front line key worker, though are one of the many of us who have been told to stay at home, you are actually also ‘saving lives’ - a powerful and meaningful thought, and you certainly are not doing ‘nothing’!

Start to notice all the small things that you do, in fact, ‘choose’ to do in your everyday life.  

We may not be able to choose to go to work or not, but most of us are lucky enough to be able to choose whether we have tea or coffee, whether we make our bed or not, whether we brush our teeth or not, or whether we listen to the radio or watch TV.

What’s harder, though possible with practice and awareness, is to notice that we can also choose how we react to things.

Right now the worst thing we can do in the circumstances is to catastrophise and panic.

Instead of worrying and frantically trying to fight the situation, accept it is what it is, accept what you can’t control and then resolve to do your best within all that you can control, whilst acknowledging that ‘this too shall pass’.

If you feel anxiety rising, practise some deep slow breathing:

• First acknowledge the feeling and thank it for alarming you to the fact that things are not as they should be.
• Then, because worrying about our future is not currently helpful since none of us know what it will look like, or when the situation will change, start deep breathing into your belly. 
• Make the out-breath longer than the in-breath, letting the belly fill up and expand on the in-breath and contract on a longer out-breath. 
• It maybe useful to count to an in-breath of about 7 and an out-breath of about 11. 
• Do this about 6 – 10 times, feel your feet on the ground beneath you and notice all around you. 
• Get back into the present moment. Then make a choice to turn your mind onto getting on with other things that you enjoy doing or need to do.

Savour and notice all the little moments and things in your day like the smell of coffee, the feel of the water on your body as you shower, the bed that holds you through the night.

It is also really important to avoid feeding the anxiety with sensationalised unreliable information. Limit screen and online time to set times in the day.

Community spirit

We are social creatures and remaining in touch with others is hugely important. Doing acts of kindness is good for our physical and emotional health, so:

• Do check up on others. Maybe offer phone support to people who are isolated and on their own, and if you are able offer more physical support too, such as shopping or gardening.
• Get creative and join an online class, have regular contact with friends and family via the phone, Facetime and Skype etc.
• If you are living with others cook together, work out a rota of jobs so everyone has a sense of purpose and play together.
• You could also always join my free Facebook self-massage sessions and a shared disco dancing experience from the comfort of your own homes!

Look after your physical health

Finally remember to look after your physical health too. Our emotional and physical health is interconnected, so do get outside if you can and enjoy some daylight on your skin.

Exercising in some form or other is more important than ever and it needn’t take up a lot of space.

Finally remember that what we eat and drink directly affects how we feel, so choose to make some wise, health supportive choices throughout your day. 

If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious or find yourself emotionally eating perhaps, and would like more information on how I can help support you then please visit my website livewellandprosper.uk or feel free to contact me for a free chat.

t: 07545 227272

e: helen@livewellandprosper.uk

Together we will get through this!

Words: Helen Prosper

About Me

The post How to look after your emotional health during Coronavirus appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.